paradragon - What is Style

Tone:

Diction + Imagery = Tone
DIDLS: Diction, Imagery, Details, Language, and Sentence Structure
Irony/Satire: saying the opposite of what is meant or using an extreme to make a point
Connotation/Denotation: Connotation involves additional meaning while Denotation involves only the dictionary definition
The danger of judgemental terms (hard, complicated, amazing, genius): Describe the emotions that the author creates instead of judging how they do so
Notes from connotative scale and “Waiting” rewrite lesson: Changing a couple words and phrases can drastically change the meaning of a passage. Even without changing the denotation of the sentences, a person can change the connotation.

Selection of Detail:

Other literary terms this encompasses; there are some literary devices not included within DIDLS
What it means to “name a category” and why this is important: it helps the annotator find word with similar meanings or terms that establish the same theme or setting
Epithets: (This word has been on the test for the past three years.) word/phrase attributed to a person to describe them instead of name them like an appositive (the Lion-Hearted)
Verisimilitude: appearance of being real/credible
Notes from Dombey and Son lesson: words like those that describe temperature or weather are often used together in order to establish a greater meaning that ties to the theme. Look for patterns.

Imagery:
Common Broad “Category” Names:

Auditory: things you hear
Visual: things you see
Gustatory: things you taste
Tactile: things you touch
Olfactory: things you smell
Kinetic: things that move/change
Organic: living things or things that were alive
Dark and light: often used for contrasting or showing good vs evil
Juxtaposed: putting different things together to show their differences or sometimes similarities despite differences
Notes from Dombey and Son lesson: the wife's sickness and visual and auditory despair is juxtaposed with her response that appears happy. Dombey also clearly doesn't care much for her condition, because it is juxtaposed with how he reacts to his new son's birth, a reaction which contains much more emotion

Figurative Language:

Metaphor: comparing things by saying one is the other
Simile: comparing things by saying they are like each other
Hyperbole: exaggerating something for effect
Understatement: used for effect as well
Personification: giving an inhuman thing human traits
Synecdoche - part of a whole represents the whole
Metononmy - object represents someone
Paradox - a statement that has illogical conflicts if taken literally
Apostrophe - writer directly addresses someone who is dead, absent, or an object
Possible “category” tie-ins: juxtaposition of senses can be used with figurative language techniques for even more effect
Notes from “One Art” Lesson: the art of losing is understated in its emotional importance and is even compared to being no disaster. Later in the poem, the paradox is altered as she admits that it is in fact a disaster in appearance.

Point of View/Narrative Control:

First Person: the narrator tells their own story using the first person tense
Second Person: rare in literature; used to implicate the reader
Third Person Limited: narrator is not the character whose story it is, but the narrator also does not know what is going to happen
Third Person Omniscient: the narrator does know what will happen, which causes dramatic irony often
Stream of Consciousness: a way of writing in which the author writes things as they come to mind, frequently not in chronological order
Narrator Reliability: determine whether you can trust the reader, because sometimes there is irony caused by a narrator lying
Notes from Point of View Lesson: N/A

Organization (Including Use of Time)

narrative structure: Forrest Gump; a character tells the story
flashback: the story happens in the past and is remembered
framed story: Life of Pi; there is a story told by a character within the story being told by the author
formal: Freytag's pyramid is used
informal: Freytag's pyramid is followed less because writing is more experimental (20th & 21st century)
sonnet forms: 14 line poem written in iambic pentameter with a rhyme scheme
villanelle: 19 line poem with 2 rhymes throughout, consisting of 5 tercets and a quatrain, with the first and third lines of the opening tercet recurring alternately at the end of the other tercets and with both repeated at the close of the concluding quatrain; repetition is rampant and important
ballad: poem/song narrating story in short stanzas, often with unknown authors
couplet: 2 lines of verse, normally with the same meter and rhyming in the same way that form a unit together
tercet: 3 lines of verse, rhyming together or rhyming with an another tercet
quatrain: stanza of 4 lines, especially one with alternate rhymes
Notes from Native Guard Lesson: the stanzas of 6 lines have 2 tercets each that rhyme together in inverse orders. It is neither a villanelle nor sonnet, but it does call attention to time using legacies and histories

Literary Terms Analyzing Contrast

Verbal Irony: saying something other than what is meant
Situational Irony: something unexpected occurring
Dramatic Irony: the audience knowing more than the characters
Oxymoron: contradicting terms appear in conjunction, often one modifying the other
Paradox: a statement that seems to contradict itself logically
Juxtaposition: different things being thrown together to show contrasts and similarities
Notes from “For Julia in the Deep Water” Lesson: there is irony due to Julia not knowing that she is getting a lesson on how not to drown. There are paradoxes and oxymorons that highlight the confusion she feels, because the arms that are there to prevent disaster are also described as merciless. Someone is also drowning in the air. Nothing is done harder than anything before.

Sound (or Musicality) Descriptors:

euphony: harmonious combo of words to be pleasing to the ear
cacophony: the opposite of euphony; sounding terrible
smooth diction: word choice that flows nicely; few hard consonants
harsh diction: abrupt word choice that may sound choppy; many hard consonants
Avoid the use of “flowing” and never use “diction” without a descriptor
Notes from “For Julia, In the Deep Water” Lesson: there is harsh diction in many places that are associated with drowning, such as dark water that Julia is afraid of.

Sound Devices:

alliteration: starting letters/sounds for adjacent words are the same
consonance: a group of consonants sounds or are the same
assonance: repetition of vowel sounds
onomatopoeia: words that represent sounds made, often words that are meant to sound like the sounds
Notes from “For Julia, In the Deep Water” Lesson and Robert Frost’s “Mowing”: there are many words that start with or contain "w" for effect. The alliteration/consonance ties words and phrases together, coming together to form a tone even when some of the words seem to contrast

Rhyme:

formal: rhymes that clearly make sense and are conventional
informal: rhymes that use different ways of making the same sounds
traditional: rhymes that make the same sounds automatically
unconventional: rhymes that make the same sounds only when the words are pronounced slightly differently from usual
absence of: the words don't rhyme at all; can either be throughout or intentionally sudden at only a certain point

Is it free verse?

Notes from “One Art” Lesson: the rhyme scheme is ABA mostly in a conventional manner, but when the poem progresses and gets more ironic, there is slant rhyme then at the end the rhyme scheme changes, highlighting the stanza's importance, especially the lines that do not rhyme normally.

Meter or Prosody: the patterns of rhythm and sound used in a poem
formal: rhymes that clearly make sense and are conventional
informal: rhymes that use different ways of making the same sounds
traditional: rhymes that make the same sounds automatically
unconventional: rhymes that make the same sounds only when the words are pronounced slightly differently from usual
absence of: the words don't rhyme at all; can either be throughout or intentionally sudden at only a certain point
Iambic pentameter: line of verse with 5 metrical feet, each with one short/unstressed syllable followed by a long/stressed one.
Metric feet: a segment of a line of poetry that forms a pattern based on the stressed/long and unstressed/short syllables it contains
Notes from Hamlet soliloquy Lesson: N/A

Allusion

historical: an allusion made to a past time period or action of great significance
literary: allusion is made to another book/poem/piece of writing, often a famous one that people will easily identify
Biblical: allusion is made to the Bible
Shakespearean: allusion is made to a work by Shakespeare
pop: allusion is made to something modern or part of pop culture, more likely to be understood by non-scholarly folk
Mythological: allusion is made to a myth/legend/folklore
Notes from Dombey and Son: the passage uses Shakespearean references and also alludes historically to the importance of a son. The piece is also somewhat critical of ideals of the time, so those are alluded to as things Dombey goes overboard on, such as seeking the idea of something instead of actually finding happiness in the changing world. There is also sort of a Biblical allusion in that he compares himself to divinity by replacing god in A.D.

Also, within the Greek tragic tradition be aware of ideas such as:

dramatic unity: a story should have consistent actions, settings, and or time
hubris: often a character flaw in tragic heroes, hubris is extreme pride that has dire consequences
catharsis: purging of emotions by releasing them all at once
Notes from Dombey and Son Lesson: Dombey has hubris in his family name and store to the extent that he replaces Anno Domini with Anno Dombei. He also vents all of his emotions to his sickly wife, which is a form of catharsis.

Repetition

words: repetition of words or phrases
images: repetition of scenes or images to tie them together
structural: tying together phrases by how they are written
grammatical: tying together phrases by how they are similarly written
rhetorical (i.e. anaphora, etc.): using a word in place of another, but repeating the concept
Notes from “One Art” Lesson: the words master, loss, and disaster are frequently repeated, but they are used in different phrases that change their meaning and show progression throughout the poem of the changing concept of loss the author has

Sentence Types

loose: main clause is followed by phrases and/or clauses that modify it
periodic: the main clause is at the end, after its modifiers
parallel: a type of phrasing is repeated so that tense or number aren't suddenly changed when addressing multiple words in a group
chiasmus: words/phrases are repeated in reverse order while maintaining similar overall sentence structure
inverted word order: the subject comes after the verb, is in-between verb parts, or is not included at all
Notes from “Waiting” Lesson: similar sentence types are repeated to show their importance. Parallel structure is used to show the many actions that the substitute teacher makes in a day while also showing that the actions all blur together in a routine that makes them all seem the same.

Punctuation:

Period (also called “full stop” or “caesura”): definitively ends a sentence with certainty
exclamation point/question mark (“exclamatory caesura” or “interrogative caesura”): exclamation shows excitement while question shows uncertainty
comma: splits parts of a sentence, often used as a dramatic pause, but must be accompanied by a conjunction when splitting independent clauses
colon: shows introduction of incoming examples, often in a list
hyphen vs. em dash: the em dash is used to split the sentence apart with dramatic pauses and shifts of tone while the hyphen simply splits joined words
Notes from “Waiting” Lesson: the sentences are very long, with many commas to show pauses that emphasize the slow repetition of many actions and thoughts that blur together into routine.

Characterization

direct: describing someone or something using words or phrases directly associated with them
indirect: describing someone using reactions to them, actions they make, or other indirect forms of hinting at how they really are without actually stating a description
flat: 2 dimensional, do not develop, simple and predictable
round: complex and develop in the story, often surprisingly
static: do not change in the story; are a stable foundation
stock: archetypal figure; a stereotypical figure that is easy to identify and predict
developing: the characterization of someone or something changes throughout the story
epiphany: someone achieves a sudden realization that shifts their world view
Notes from Dombey and Son Lesson: Dombey is described as arrogant and selfish indirectly by his actions and the bemusement of his wife, while his wife and their son are more directly described as contrastingly healthy or sick

Setting

place AND time: historical importance is important, the political moves or headlines of the time matter, and the normal actions made in a certain place are also important
Notes from “Waiting” Lesson: the setting of the story can reflect the thoughts of the characters and set the tone, such as driving through mud in the cold being a depressing tone.